long, easy strides.
Dana had met a number of townspeople since her arrival, but not this man. She would have remembered the overpowering masculinity of the rugged, tanned face with its stubborn, square jaw and the laugh lines that spread like delicate webs from the corners of his eyes. She would have remembered the trembling nervousness he set off inside her.
“Who are you?” she asked, trying to hide her uneasiness but clinging defensively to the hedge clippers nonetheless. It was one thing to know the adage that in a small town there were no strangers, but quite another to be confronted unexpectedly with a virile, powerful specimen like this in your own front yard. She figured the hedge clippers made them an almost even match, which was both a reassuring and a daunting thought.
The man, tall and whipcord lean, paused halfway up the walk and shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans. If he was taken aback by her unfriendliness, there was no sign of it on his face. His smile never wavered and his voice lowered to an even more soothing timbre, as if to prove he was no threat to her.
“Nicholas…Nick Verone.” When that drew no response, he added, “Tony’s father.”
Dana drew in a sharp breath. The name, of course, had registered at once. It was plastered on the side of just about every construction trailer in the county. It was also the signature on her paycheck. She was a town employee. Nicholas Verone was the elected treasurer, a man reputed to have political aspirations on a far grander scale, perhaps the state legislature, perhaps even Washington.
He was admired for his integrity, respected for his success and, since the death of his wife three years earlier, targeted by every matchmaker in town. She’d been hearing about him since her first day on the job. Down at town hall, the kindly clerk, a gleam in her periwinkle-blue eyes, had taken one good look at Dana and begun scheming to arrange a meeting. To Betsy Markham’s very evident maternal frustration, Dana had repeatedly declined.
The connection to Tony, however, was what mattered this morning. Turning her wary frown into a faint tentative smile of welcome, she saw the resemblance now, the same hazel eyes that were bright and inquisitive and filled with warmth and humor, the same unruly brown hair that no brush would ever tame. While at ten years old Tony was an impish charmer, his father had a quiet, far more dangerous allure. The sigh of relief she’d felt on learning his identity caught somewhere in her throat and set off a different reaction entirely.
Ingrained caution and natural curiosity warred, making her tone abrupt as she asked, “What are you doing here?”
Nick Verone still didn’t seem the least bit offended by her inhospitable attitude. In fact, he seemed amused by it. “Tony mentioned your roof was leaking. I had some time today and I thought maybe I could check it out for you.”
Dana grimaced. She was going to have to remember to watch her tongue around Tony. She’d been alert to Betsy Markham’s straightforward matchmaking tactics, but she’d never once suspected that Tony might decide to get in on the conspiracy to find his father a mate. Then again, maybe Tony had only been trying to repay her for helping him with his history lesson on the Civil War. At her urging, he’d finally decided not to try to persuade the teacher that the South had actually won.
“Well, we should have,” he’d grumbled, his jaw set every bit as stubbornly as she imagined his father’s could be. In the end, though, Tony had stuck to the facts and returned proudly a week later to show her the B minus on his test paper, the highest history grade he’d ever received.
At the moment, though, with Nick Verone waiting patiently in front of her, it hardly seemed to matter what Tony’s motivation had been. She had to send the man on his way. His presence was making her palms sweat.
“Thanks, anyway,” she said, giving him a smile she hoped seemed suitably appreciative. “But I’ve already made arrangements for a contractor to come by next week.”
Instead of daunting him, her announcement drew a scowl. “I hope you didn’t call Billy Watson.”
Dana swallowed guiltily and said with a touch of defiance, “What if I did?”
“He’ll charge you an arm and a leg and he won’t get the job done.”
“Haven’t you heard that it’s bad business to knock the competition?”
“Billy’s not my competition. For that matter, calling him a contractor is a stretch of the imagination. He’s a scoundrel out to make a quick buck so he can finance his next binge. Everybody around here knows that and I can’t imagine anyone recommending him. Why did you call him in the first place?”
She’d called Billy Watson because he was the only other contractor—or handyman, for that matter—she’d been able to find when water had started dripping through her roof in five different places during the first of April’s pounding spring showers. All of Betsy’s unsolicited praise for Nick Verone had set off warning bells inside her head. She’d known intuitively that asking him to take a look at her roof would be asking for trouble. His presence now and its impact on her heartbeat were proof enough that she’d been right. To any woman determinedly seeking solitude, this aggressive, incredibly sexy man was a threat.
She stared into Nick’s eyes, noted the expectant gleam and decided that wasn’t an explanation she should offer. He was the kind of man who’d make entirely too much out of such a candid response.
“You’re a very busy man, Mr. Verone,” she said instead. “I assumed Billy Watson could get here sooner.”
Nick’s grin widened, dipping slightly on the left side to make it beguilingly crooked. A less determined woman might fall for that smile, but Dana tried very hard to ignore it.
“I’m here now,” he pointed out, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet, his fingers still jammed into the pockets of his jeans in a way that called attention to their fit across his flat stomach and lean hips.
“Mr. Watson promised to be here Monday morning first thing. That’s plenty soon enough.”
“And if it rains between now and then?”
“I’ll put out the pots and pans again.”
Nick only barely resisted the urge to chuckle. He’d heard the dismissal in Dana’s New York-accented voice and read the wariness in her eyes. It was the look a lot of people had when first confronted with small-town friendliness after a lifetime in big cities. They assumed every neighborly act would come with a price tag. It took time to convince them otherwise. Oddly enough, he found that in Dana’s case he wanted to see to her enlightenment personally. There was something about this slender, overly-cautious woman that touched a responsive chord deep inside him.
Besides, he loved River Glen. He’d grown up here and he’d witnessed—in fact, he’d been a part of—its slow evolution from a slightly shabby summer resort past its prime into a year-round community with a future. The more people like Dana Brantley who settled here, the faster changes would come.
He’d read her résumé and knew that one year ago, at age twenty-eight, she’d gone back to school to finish her master’s degree in library science. He was still a little puzzled why a native New Yorker would want to come to a quiet place like River Glen, but he was glad of it. She’d bring new ideas, maybe some big-city ways. He didn’t want his town to lose its charm, but he wanted it to be progressive, rather than becoming mired down in the sea of complacency that had destroyed other communities and made their young people move on in search of more excitement.
He figured it was up to people in his position to see that Dana felt welcome. Small towns had a way of being friendly and clannish at the same time. Sometimes it took a while for superficial warmth to become genuine acceptance.
He gazed directly into Dana’s eyes and shook his head. “Sorry, ma’am, it just wouldn’t be right. I can’t let you do that.” He saw to it that his southern drawl increased perceptibly.
“Do what?” A puzzled frown tugged at her lips.
“Stay up all night, running from room